Is he talking about Perizaad Zorabian? Parsi community is mainly concentrated in/around Mumbai and to some extent Gujrat coastal line.Currently their population has been reduced to mere 75,000.If you want to see one of the oldeset Parsi Fire temple,its near Churchgate station.While walking from Churchgate towards Hutatma Chowk,you can see onthe left hand side.It was built in 1725!! Many Parsis happened to be outstanding.Some of them were Homi Bhabha,JRD Tata etc ,yes Cyrus Broacha too. Former PM's(Indira Gandhi) husband Firoz Gandhi was Parsi.His original last name was Daruwala.Needless to say,Nehru asked him to change his last name during marriage. [Daruwala,literal meaning is the one who owns liquor!!] [ April 04, 2006: Message edited by: Arjunkumar Shastry ]

Originally posted by Chetan Parekh: It's not like that, many South Indian people call me Chethan instead of Chetan. May be their tongue get sleepy after eating curd rice.

How many call you Chethan ?

MInu
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posted Apr 04, 2006 05:43:00

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All the people who eat curd rice...

Arjunkumar Shastry
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posted Apr 04, 2006 06:11:00

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Originally posted by Chetan Parekh: It's not like that, many South Indian people call me Chethan instead of Chetan.

This happens because "ta" in Chetan can be pronounced similar to "ta" in Tata.But its not correct.It must be pronounced as "ta" in Tara.Hence to differentiate,Chetan is written as Chethan.Similarly Jayalalitha and not Jayalalita!!

This happens because "ta" in Chetan can be pronounced similar to "ta" in Tata.But its not correct.It must be pronounced as "ta" in Tara.Hence to differentiate,Chetan is written as Chethan.Similarly Jayalalitha and not Jayalalita!!

But then how do you differentiate between th as in Theater and th as in Chethan?

The problem is again the same...insufficiant codes in one language to encode sounds of another language. English and Tamil are particulary deficiant in that respect. In north, Chetan is the convention for the t (as in Tare (stars) ) sound and in south Chathan is the convention for the same. So both are correct or incorrect !!!

There are many more funny differences in naming conventions. North , West & East of India follows one naming convention while South of India follows exactly opposite . Few examples-

Vinod -Vinoth (in South) Sharada- Saradha Neelkantha- Neelakanda

There are few extra words in most of the West , East & North Indian languages like �t� (Tare - stars) , �th� (THumb), �t� (Table) and �th� (paTHan) the problem is there is no replacement for these words in English.

"A wish changes nothing. A decision changes everything." - Unknown

Arjunkumar Shastry
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posted Apr 04, 2006 23:00:00

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The most difficult thing many people find is pronouncing some words Marathi words like Worli.Li is pronounced completely differently by non-Marathi people.Same is the case with your last name.

True, most bawas are from Bombay. You missed a couple in the "famous bawaji list" - Freddie Mercury of Queen, Zubin Mehta.

The only parsi I know in the Indian film industry is Boman Irani. I had the pleasure of seeing him perform live in Bangalore around 8-9 years ago. I think he totally rocks.

Contrary to popular opinion, there are still quite a few parsis around and all the parsis don't know each of the 74,999 others. Please don't inundate this thread with "do you know so-and-so who lives in so-and-so place." Chances are I don't.

Chetan Parekh
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posted Apr 05, 2006 04:01:00

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Originally posted by Bhoooooo Yyempeti: Contrary to popular opinion, there are still quite a few parsis around and all the parsis don't know each of the 74,999 others. Please don't inundate this thread with "do you know so-and-so who lives in so-and-so place." Chances are I don't.

Indira Gandhi married to Firoz who was Parsi without Gandhi surname, but to take political mileage of Gandhi surname, they changed his surname to Gandhi and ultimately Indira Nehru became Indira Gandhi- this continued up to Rahul Gandhi.

Sameer Jamal
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posted Apr 05, 2006 04:54:00

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There is a real confusion between Parsis and Bori Muslim

Arjunkumar Shastry
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posted Apr 05, 2006 05:05:00

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[ April 05, 2006: Message edited by: Arjunkumar Shastry ]

Chetan Parekh
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posted Apr 05, 2006 05:07:00

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Originally posted by Sameer Jamal: There is a real confusion between Parsis and Bori Muslim

Parsism or Zoroastism is a religion.

While Bori / Bohra Muslim are the sub sections of Muslim community. They are aslo Muslims, but their culture and rituals are very diff then the Sunni and Shiya.

Sameer Jamal
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posted Apr 05, 2006 05:26:00

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I meant the titles, Daruwala, Premjee all sounds the same.

Bo Yyempeti
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posted Apr 05, 2006 05:36:00

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Quite a few Parsi names are similar to the muslim/bohri names because the Parsis migrated from Persia to India around 700 years ago.

The names are where the similarity ends.

Chetan Parekh
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posted Apr 05, 2006 05:43:00

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A story is that when the Parsis landed in Gujarat, the ruler of the place sent them a bowl filled to the brim with milk to indicate that they were full up and could not take any more people. The Parsi High Priests added sugar to the milk to indicate that that was how they would assimilate into society. And ruler game them permission to settle in Gujarat.

Originally posted by Chetan Parekh: A story is that when the Parsis landed in Gujarat, the ruler of the place sent them a bowl filled to the brim with milk to indicate that they were full up and could not take any more people. The Parsi High Priests added sugar to the milk to indicate that that was how they would assimilate into society. And ruler game them permission to settle in Gujarat.

The story further goes that the ruler placed three conditions, that we still follow:

a) They would assimilate into the local culture (which is why we (try to) speak Gujurati and wear the local dress)

b) They would not try to profess the Parsi religion or convert people into the religion

c) They would keep out of the way (marriage ceremonies etc to take place only in the evenings/after dark)

I can understand if Parsis follow 1 and 2. Do they still follow 3? Looks outdated.

Bo Yyempeti
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posted Apr 05, 2006 07:31:00

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I was being a bit euphamistic there. The condition was quite literally to "keep out of the way", but that their ceremonies and revelry would not interfere with the rest of the populace.

Yes, our marriages still do take place after dusk.

The "thread ceremony" equivalent - a Navjote - takes place just before sunset. I think that is because it was traditionally held inside an agiary (Fire Temple) which is off-limits to people from other religions.